Great examples of waste reuse to inspire your business
Tuesday 1st July 2025
Waste isn’t just bad for the planet; it’s bad for business.
According to the World Bank, by 2050 annual waste generation will have increased by 70% unless drastic action is taken. Not only does this mean more rubbish in our landfills and more plastic in our water, but also fewer resources that could be used by creative, dynamic businesses.
If you want to give your company a boost while helping to protect the future of our planet, it’s time to rethink your attitude to waste management. However, that’s easier said than done if you haven’t put the time and energy into researching this space in the same way that waste management companies do.
So, to help you along the way, let us provide a little inspiration courtesy of some of the most forward-thinking companies tackling waste today.
Sustainable sourcing
Perhaps the most obvious – yet one of the most effective – ways to reduce waste is to reclaim and recycle materials, creating a circular economy which leads to both less waste and lower prices for you and your customers.
That is the ethos of luxury clothing brand Elvis & Kresse, who create high-end accessories from reclaimed materials, including leather offcuts, parachute silk, and even old fire hoses. These highly desirable products show that luxury fashion can be good for consumers and good for the environment.
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Reducing agricultural waste
It’s not only plastic and material waste that impacts the environment, but agricultural waste as well.
Piñatex is a sustainable textile developed by Dr Carmen Hijosa using pineapple leaf fibres, a waste product of pineapple farming. By extracting the fibres from the leaves, drying them, and combining them with bioplastic, a material is created which has been used by over 1,000 fashion and interior brands.
Piñatex is not just a sustainable and commercially viable textile, but a valuable financial opportunity for pineapple farming communities.
Making money from waste
40% of all plastic produced is used once before finding its way into our water supplies, our food and our oceans.
Poorer communities are typically the ones who suffer most, due to inefficient infrastructure and lack of education. That’s why Tom Jackson and Angus Fleming founded Honest Ocean, to reduce plastic waste in South East Asia. They organise and educate local people, building supply chains and infrastructure to enable them to gather, sort and then sell plastic waste to companies who use recycled plastics in their products.
It helps local people, reduces waste and provides cheaper plastic sources for businesses.
Eco-friendly architecture
Baking new bricks for use in construction produces a lot of carbon and most of demolition waste is sent to landfills.
Thankfully, innovative companies like Rebrick are tackling this problem by clearing demolition waste and upcycling it for use in future architecture. Most bricks that are thrown away only require some cleaning or minor remedial work to reuse, retaining enough strength to be used for centuries to come.
Rebrick ensures the buildings of the future are not built on the ruins of the natural world.
Reducing carbon to propel creativity
Temporary museum exhibitions are surprisingly wasteful. From the air miles used to ship exhibits across oceans, to the production of brochures, banners and other paraphernalia, these institutions dedicated to the preservation of our heritage do a lot to jeopardise the future of our planet.
But that is beginning to change, with more museums and scientific institutions putting sustainability at the heart of their ethos. From the Natural History Museum to the Science Museum, many of the UK’s most popular venues are now choosing to use modular systems for constructing walls, partitions and platforms – using designs that can be disassembled and moved to different locations with relative ease.
It makes good business sense as well as moral sense, encouraging creative solutions to the waste problem and preventing tons of wood, metal, glass and fabrics from being sent to landfill every time an exhibition is replaced.
Making ethics the heart of your branding
Turning sustainability into a core aspect of your branding can create a loyal and passionate consumer base made of the millions of people who want to be able to shop ethically.
Lush, the cosmetics company, is a good example of this. They are dedicated to ethical sourcing, sustainability, and cruelty free products, and have run dozens of campaigns in store and across social media to raise awareness for both environmental issues and the company itself.
The future of business is green, and rich for anyone with enough vision to see it.
